Synopsis:In this book, McMahan offers the first comprehensive attempt to chart the development of "modern Buddhism". His position is critical but empathetic: while he presents modern Buddhism as a construction of numerous parties with vested interests, he does not reduce it to a misrepresentation. Rather, he presents modern Buddhism as a complex historical process constituted by a variety of responses to some of the most important concerns of the modern era.

"This is an exceptionally well-written and imaginative piece of scholarship. David McMahon treats in great depth many different facets of Buddhist modernism including art and creativity, meditation and monastic ideals, and science…reflects an excellent understanding of how Buddhism fits into the larger scheme of modern religiosity and the development of modern scociety more generally." Steven Heine.

"Offers readers a theoretically structured analysis of the development of new modes of thought and discourse in the Buddhist religion since the latter part of the nineteenth century. Grounded in a proper understanding of premodern Buddhist ideas, this work effectively unravels the complex ways in which Buddhism has been adapted to fit the theoretical commitments and tacit understandings of people living in the modern world." Stephen Berkitz.

"With the Making of Buddhist Modernism, the study of modern Buddhism has reached a new level of maturity. This sweeping and sophisticated analysis of the ways in which Westerners and Asians alike have constructed new forms of Buddhism under the pressures of modernity is thoroughly disillusioning, in the best sense of the word. McMahon shows that much of what has been written and said about Buddhism in the modern era only can be understood against the background of dominant Western discourses. Trenchant but fair, erudite yet lucid, this book should be required reading for any serious student of Buddhism, and will be appreciated as well by those interested in intellectual history, cultural studies, or simply, the inquiry into modernity." Roger R.Jackson.